There are a variety of applications in which it is desired to dispense flowable product upon subjacent objects. As an example only, with respect to which the invention will be described with particular reference, it is often desired to dispense food products upon food receptacles, for example to dispense rice upon a dish or tray which is to carry a frozen-food type of dinner.
In general, it is desirable to be able to dispense the product upon a predetermined portion of the subjacent object, for example to dispense a particular type of food upon a particular area of a food tray. One way in which this has been done is to load a large hopper with the flowable food product, move the tray or receptacle into a stationary position beneath the hopper, and then rotate a dispensing auger at the outlet end of the hopper sufficiently to dispense the desired amount of food product upon the underlying position of the tray. This suffers from the drawback that the tray motion is intermittent, which is very inefficient in high-speed production processes. Instead, it is desirable to be able to dispense the product as the subjacent object is continuously moving beneath the dispenser.
One way in which such dispensing has been performed in the past utilizes a dispensing line extending from the lower end of the hopper and which contains a metering piston and chamber for dispensing a predetermined amount of the product from the outlet end of the line each time the piston is advanced, and for pulling additional product into the dispensing chamber during withdrawal of the piston. The outlet end of the dispensing line is then moved cyclically back and forth over and along the direction of motion of the receptacle, the piston being actuated to dispense product only while the receptacle is beneath the outlet end of the dispensing line. While satisfactory for some purposes in that the outlet end of the tube leading from the piston chamber can be caused to move with and above the receptacle to a limited extent during dispensing, in many cases it has been found that such use of a piston for dispensing the product often produces unacceptable results.
In some measure this is due to the complexity of the system, and to the typical relatively small motion of the dispensing end of the dispensing line along the path of the receptacles; however, in other cases, its principal drawback is with respect to its effect upon the product. For example, in many instances it is preferred that cooked rice dispensed onto the receptacles have a relatively light, fluffy, non-compacted form, as determined by consumer preferences. The piston dispenser tends to compact the product which it is moving, and in the case of rice of certain types, cooked to particular stages, the dispensed product may be too tightly agglomerated and compacted. This same drawback, due to the compacting effect of the piston dispenser, can affect adversely the dispensing of other products as well.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and useful method and apparatus for the dispensing of flowable food products upon a moving object.
Another object is to provide such method and apparatus in which the food product is not subjected to the compacting effects of a piston.
Another object is to provide such method and system which is simple and reliable in construction and operation, and which is readily adjustable to provide different consistencies and distributions of dispensed product.